Forget about remembering with Kwiry's SMS-based social search tool

It happens all the time. You're out somewhere and hear a good song on the radio, or want to jot down a book, movie or TV show you want to look up later. While many phones have built in voice note applications, the information you just (painstakingly) jotted down stays on the phone, and you might just forget about it. A company called Kwiry (like "query") is attempting to help you out with a new service that turns a brief text message into a full blown Web search that you can come back to when you're near a computer. Think of it like Twitter, but with a dash of Remember The Milk and Google.

The service cross checks each item that's been sent its way over a variety of search engines, including ones like Yelp, Yahoo Shopping, Google Maps, and iTunes to help you sniff out restaurants, products, addresses, and music albums. It's how the service intends to make its money, not only by using things like affiliate links, but also inserting sponsored advertising alongside the regular search results.

Keep track of your own Kwirys, or those of your friends on one big page. You can also just grab the RSS feed and check it out in your favorite reader.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Just like Twitter, messages sent to Kwiry show up on a personal feed with a simple URL you can share with friends. To toggle a sent message as private, you can give each message a letter prefix by typing "p" in front of it. These will show up alongside the rest of your Kwiry messages, although they'll be denoted with a little private emblem that makes them easy to sort through. You can also set it up so just your friends will see your posts either as a default, or by using a yet another letter prefix in front of your message.

Like any good communication platform Kwiry's got a lot going for it with regards to integration with other social services. There are little modules for Netvibes, iGoogle, Pageflakes, and others, along with a Facebook app that links up with your Kwiry account to show off your latest queried items--although oddly missing is a way to send one from the app (which admittedly is kind of useless if you're on a computer in the first place). Twitter fans are also in luck, as you can simply add Kwiry's Twitter bot as a friend, and send it direct messages that accept the same privacy settings.

The one thing this service is missing is some visual style. I'm not saying it's ugly, but compared to entrances from other micropublishing services like Jaiku, Twitter, and Pownce, Kwiry falls a little on the plain side. The positive to that is that it's super fast, easy, and intuitive, which on the whole is far more important than looks alone. I've added it to my contact list for the time being, although it's worth noting that if your phone's got a data plan, you can probably continue to be selfish antisocial and look things up without sharing them with others.

[kwiry]

Josh,

Thanks for the thorough and thoughtful posting about our launch! We look forward to getting feedback from all of our new users and making the service even more valuable with new features.

One quick note - you mentioned our intention to use sponsored advertising for monetization. Actually, our primary business model revolves around partnerships with offline advertisers and media companies - more info on this can be found here: http://www.kwiry.com/page.php?page=info&tc=kwiryMedia

I encourage everyone to sign-up (it's free) and try it out. Please e-mail me with any questions you don't see covered in the FAQ or feedback at [e-mail].

Thanks again,
-Ron (CEO & co-founder of kwiry)

[varmansamuel]

There is another beta out there w/ similar functinoality... Jott.com. Voice recognition allows you to all in reminders, todo's, text others etc.

[edgebert]

1-888-9-REQALL and start recording things you'd like to remember.

[scoop2008]

I signed up with Kwiry. I find it better than Twitter, because of its ease of use.

Rater

[codythebest]

I agree with Scoop...I gave up Twitter since a long time... Sevierville Real Estate

[Fruitloop55]

For someone like me who has a memory like a sieve, kwiry looks like being a mecca destination from now on. Really cool idea, like all good ideas I'd wish I had come up with it.

[Eddy1950]

The intergration with twitter is a big plus, I just downloaded it onto my machine and it's the business so far.

[Ski28]

It is super fast and intuitive which is a big plus and really makes it

easy . The looks don't bother me

[RaziTun]

Kwiry and twitter are both better but i like to go with twitter, its reliable and easy!!
Jennifer